Welfare Reform: Activists Plan 'Daring And Disruptive' Day Of Protest

Disability activists and protest group UK Uncut will join forces to protest against the government's welfare reforms on Saturday.

The group promised a "daring and disruptive" day of civil disobedience.

Sarah Evans of UK Uncut said the bill was hurting the disabled and there were alternatives: "This Bill will remove vital lifelines and force people into deeper poverty, making many prisoners in their own homes."

It comes as the former Conservative Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay wrote he would vote against the government's plans to charge single parents to use the Child Support Agency as the bill returns to parliament on Wednesday evening.

"This is not a step I have taken lightly. But having read the arguments closely and talked in detail to Ministers, I still remain convinced that the government’s charging proposals are deeply unfair to parents raising children alone and will take away money intended for children", he wrote in the Telegraph.

When in government Mackay in 1990 helped set up the Child Support Agency.

However the controversial reforms were praised as necessary by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey who criticised the bishops behind blocking the government's welfare reform proposals in the House of Lords on Monday, saying they do not have the "moral high ground".

Ministers insist that the Bishops' amendment would have the effect of raising the cap to £50,000 a year, rendering the changes redundant if they are to deter people from remaining on welfare and not attempting to gain employment. It is highly likely that the government will seek to overturn the amendments in the Commons.